The following account was written by Di Alexander.
Tony and Betty Rackham
gave a superb presentation on their methods for photographing wildlife and
using the photos as references in their paintings. We saw how a tiny plant
was introduced into the foreground of a landscape painting. Photos of
butterflies were cropped and re-positioned onto a photograph of flowers.
Photos of wading birds were cropped and used as part of a
landscape. We could use photos of birds at our own garden feeders in order
to create a close-up study, such as Betty’s painting of woodpecker.
Betty and Tony use
their expertise to obtain high quality images. They explained how using
the macro settings on our camera could enable us to sharpen the foreground
and blur the background. They often isolate a plant from the background by
placing bark or white card behind it. Since they are proficient users of
Photo-editing software programs, they also have the option of placing
that plant on top of another photograph, for example a mass of blooms in
soft focus.
Tony and Betty know where
to find wildlife and when they are likely to be available. Tony’s
strategy for obtaining photographs of moths is to set up a collecting station
with a light overnight and then get up early in order to take photographs
before they become too active. The wonderful hawk moth was used as a subject
for a painting.
One of the slides
showed how a college created with tissue paper, card and newspaper
was transformed into a forest scene using paints, inks and
cut-out photographs of ponies.
We were grateful for the
chance to share Betty and Tony’s twin passions of photography and
art. Studying and photographing wildlife brings us closer to the beauty of the
natural world. Since we are artists, we all
have endless opportunities to celebrate nature through
taking photographs and using them in our artwork.
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| Tony and Betty |
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| Display of paintings |
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| Elephant hawk moth by Tony |
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| Forest Scene - collage by Betty |
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| Greater Spotted Woodpecker in watercolour and graphite by Betty |
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| Tortiseshells on Fleabane by Tony |
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